


don't hate our love

by tamquams



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Ronan-Compliant Language, and it's absolute chaos, i just love them your honor, noah is a ghost but he is still there and that's the only canon divergence, this is basically just the gangsey discussing sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23942629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamquams/pseuds/tamquams
Summary: Ronan, who had been facing away, snapped his head back. “I’m not scared,” he sneered. His voice contained a hint of petulance that reminded Adam strongly of Opal. “Why would I be scared?”“Coming out can be difficult,” supplied Adam reasonably. “I read a lot about it.”OR the Gangsey has a conversation about sexuality. because, let's face it, there wasn't a straight person in that entire series.
Relationships: Henry Cheng & Noah Czerny & Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 47
Kudos: 216





	don't hate our love

**Author's Note:**

> this is completely self-indulgent and just absolute chaos and nonsense. i hope you enjoy.

Ronan was pacing.

Ronan Lynch did not _pace_. Pacing was for people who were nervous, or anxious, or worried. Ronan was not any of these three things; he was tough, he was cool, he was badass. Nerds like Parrish _paced_. Ronan Lynch stomped and slammed and shouted.

And yet, Ronan was pacing.

“I don’t want to do this,” he grumbled, reaching the far wall and turning on his heel. The cavernous main room at Monmouth was inconvenient for pacing, but he made it work as he wove around the stacks of books and half-painted cereal boxes that littered the floor. 

Perched on a nearby windowsill, Adam Parrish sighed and flattened his palms against the brick surface beneath him. He had been expecting this. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said, knocking the heels of his sneakers against the wall. “I’m not gonna make you do it if you’re scared.”

Ronan, who had been facing away, snapped his head back. “I’m not scared,” he sneered. His voice contained a hint of petulance that reminded Adam strongly of Opal. “Why would I be scared?”

“Coming out can be difficult,” supplied Adam reasonably. “I read a lot about it.”

“Oh, of course you did.” Ronan took a large step over a mountain of loose papers. “Well, guess what, Freud? I’m not scared. It’s not even about me.”

Adam tapped the fingers of his right hand restlessly against the windowsill. “You’re right, it isn’t about you. It’s about _us_.”

Something softened in the hard lines and edges of Ronan’s face at Adam’s use of the word ‘us,’ but his tone was still clipped when he spoke. “Actually, it’s about Gansey.”

“What?” Adam’s eyebrows furrowed, confused. “How do you figure?”

Ronan reached his bedroom door and turned around, but he did not continue in his pacing. Instead, he leaned back against the doorframe and folded his arms across his chest, his eyes flitting around the room and landing everywhere except for Adam’s form silhouetted against the harsh winter sunshine cutting through the window. “He’s gonna be insufferable about it.”

If possible, Adam just became more confused. “What?” He tilted his head. “He isn’t going to care, Ronan.” He enunciated each word carefully, earnestly, but his eyes betrayed his shock at his boyfriend’s implication.

“Oh, like hell he isn’t,” Ronan muttered, shaking his head.

Adam inhaled sharply. He seemed to be doing silent calculations in his head. “Do you really think he won’t be happy for us?” he asked slowly.

It was Ronan’s turn to be confused. “What?” The syllable came out in more of a squawk than a word, so indignant and surprised it would have been amusing if the conversation hadn’t become so serious. “Of course I think he’s going to be happy for us! That’s the problem! He’s gonna be _too_ happy! He’s never gonna shut up about it!”

For a moment, it seemed as if Adam hadn’t understood a word that Ronan had said. He was perfectly still against the afternoon sky, his mouth open in a small, circular shape, and just when Ronan was beginning to worry about him, Adam burst out into raucous laughter.

“Oh my God,” Adam wheezed, doubling over on the windowsill, his laughs echoing against the vaulted ceilings and high glass panelling. “You almost had me convinced that Gansey was gonna be a homophobic jackass. God, Lynch, try to be a little clearer next time, could you?”

Ronan felt the corners of his own thin lips turning upward. A bark of a laugh clawed its way out of his throat. “Really? You think Gansey has it in him to be homophobic?” He pushed off from the wall and began to make his way to the other side of the room again, his demeanor calmer this time.

Adam just shook his head. “I mean, his parents _are_ Republicans…” he said with another laugh.

“Yeah, but this is Gansey,” was all that Ronan could think to say, pairing his words with half of a shrug.

Sitting up straighter, Adam leaned the crown of his head against the cold glass of the window behind him. “I told him we kissed,” he said suddenly, and Ronan stopped in his tracks. “That first night. I told him you kissed me.” He swallowed hard. “And I told him that I kissed you back.”

Ronan took another step. “Wait, so we don’t even have to come out, then,” he said, resuming his path. “We can just be like, Hey, Dick, we’re boyfriends. Wanna grab some dinner?”

Once Ronan was close enough to touch, Adam stretched out a leg and knocked his foot against one of Ronan’s calves. “I mean, he’ll probably have a billion questions, and I doubt he told the others, so. I don’t think it’ll be quite that easy.”

Ronan stepped closer until he was directly in front of Adam and carefully took the shorter boy’s hands in his, eyes cast downward. “Do you want to do this?” he murmured.

“I do,” Adam said softly. “Do you?”

Ronan just nodded and brought Adam’s hands to his lips.

Per the usual, hand-kissing segued into lip-kissing, and then neck-kissing, and then Ronan’s hands were sliding against the smooth skin of Adam’s stomach beneath his sweater and Adam’s legs were hooked around Ronan’s waist, and they were both considering the merits of moving their makeout session to a more comfortable location when the front door burst wide open just a couple yards away.

“Well,” breathed Adam, not even bothering to untangle his body from Ronan’s, “that takes care of that.”

Ronan just grinned, his lips kissed too pink to be sharp or sharklike. “Surprise.”

Standing just inside the still-open door, Gansey gaped openly at his two friends. Blue had the good grace to look away, but her lips were pulled back in a shit-eating grin that Adam knew meant he’d be hearing jokes about this for weeks. Henry was staring unabashedly at the place where Ronan’s hands disappeared beneath the hem of Adam’s shirt, clearly ecstatic. Noah just shrugged and threw himself down on the couch.

“Do you guys need some privacy?” Blue said after several awkward seconds. Ronan and Adam both narrowed their eyes, but they finally separated, Ronan shoving his hands in his pockets and Adam nervously straightening his clothes.

“Gansey, man,” huffed Ronan, turning to face his friends. “Are you… okay?”

Blinking comically, Gansey took a few shallow breaths. His brain seemed to be rebooting. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it, then opened it again and closed it again, repeating the process a few more times before finally pushing the door closed and saying, “I’m swell,” in a very weak, strangled, un-Gansey-like voice.

“Cheng,” said Noah from the couch as he pulled a throw blanket over his legs. “You owe me ten bucks.”

Ronan turned to glare at Noah, but his gaze lacked its usual heat. “You _bet_ on us?”

Noah didn’t even look up. “Yeah, and I won, so I better get my money.”

“What does a ghost even need money for?” Henry mumbled, but he was opening his wallet even as the words left his mouth.

Adam cleared his throat softly, his hands still busy straightening his tie. “So, uh, Ronan and I are dating,” he announced to the room, his eyes meeting Gansey’s. “We were going to tell you guys this afternoon, but, well…”

Still standing beside the door, Blue began to strip off her outer layers slowly, her brain obviously working over the information. “Are we allowed to ask questions?” she asked as she stepped out of her boots.

Ronan and Adam looked to each other and both shrugged, their movements synchronized. “Sure,” Adam said at the same time Ronan said, “Why not?”

They all began to talk about once. 

The four of them — Gansey, Blue, Henry, and Noah — shouted over each other, words overlapping and intermingling, and the sound overwhelmed Adam’s good ear. He instinctively angled his good ear away from the noise, wincing slightly, and although he tried to hide his discomfort, Ronan noticed immediately.

“Hey!” Ronan shouted, turned away from Adam. The room fell silent. “Fuckin’ heathens,” he said, quieter. “One at a time. Take turns. Midget, you can go first.”

Blue shot Adam an apologetic glance. “So, are you bi?” she asked in that straightforward way of hers.

“Well,” Adam started, his cheeks burning. “I’d like to do a bit more research before I settle on a label, but so far, yeah, I’d say I’m bi.” 

“And you?” Blue directed this question to Ronan with a quirk of her eyebrow.

Ronan just smiled, leaning back against a desk. “I’m gay as fuck,” he announced. Blue nodded.

“My turn,” interjected Henry, taking a step forward. “How long have you two been… together?”

Adam thought for a moment. With a glance toward Ronan, he said, “Since Ronan’s birthday party. The day before…” His sentence trailed off and they all tensed for a moment, each of them reliving a different, horrible moment. He coughed and re-routed his words. “So, only a couple of weeks.”

Gansey’s question was next. “So, how did you know you liked… guys?”

Neither Adam nor Ronan had been expecting that question. Blue swiveled to fix Gansey with a curious look, but Adam took care to keep his face and voice neutral. “Uh, me or Ronan?” 

Deliberately looking down at his hands, Gansey said, “Either. Both. If you’re comfortable sharing, of course.”

“Well,” Ronan started, an odd expression on his face. Adam watched carefully as he spoke. “I… When I was younger, it wasn’t a thing that I _thought_ about, you know? Like, I thought it was normal. It was a thing everyone dealt with. You don’t _think about_ having lungs, you just breathe.”

Blue eyed him curiously. “Weren’t you raised in the church?”

Ronan exhaled loudly. “Yes. And yes, I was taught that it was wrong to be gay. And yes, that messed with me. But I was more worried about being _magical_ and Catholic than being _gay_ and Catholic.”

This seemed perfectly reasonable to Adam, but Blue wasn’t done. “So, what, it was a non-issue?”

“Of course not,” snapped Ronan. He pulled his arms tighter around himself. “It was just so tangled up in everything else. Being gay was just another item on a long list of reasons to hate myself.”

Risking a mildly-concerned glance at Ronan, Adam jumped in before his boyfriend could be pushed any further. “I didn’t know it was allowed,” he said, and his face turned a deeper shade of pink when his friends all turned to look at him. “I thought I could only like girls. I thought my appreciation toward men was simply aesthetic. I thought the intensity of my feelings was just how friendship was supposed to feel.”

“Your feelings,” Gansey repeated, brushing his thumb over his bottom lip. “Toward… Ronan? Or…?”

“Yes, toward Ronan,” Adam sighed. “Don’t worry, Gansey, I don’t have some secret bisexual crush on you or whatever. I like Ronan.”

Gansey coughed. “No, no, I’m not worried.” His words tripped over themselves. “I just… I’m curious about these _feelings_. Are they, say, different from the feelings you had for Blue?”

Adam and Blue both winced; they were on good terms again, but their failed relationship was still a bit of a sore spot. “I don’t know,” Adam admitted after a moment, leaning his head back against the windowpane. “I don’t think that the way it feels has anything to do with my sexuality. Liking Blue felt like everything was shifted just slightly out of place. Liking Blue felt like having a word on the tip of your tongue but being unable to remember it. Liking Ronan feels like waking up in the morning and actually feeling rested. It’s like letting out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. I don’t think it’s because Blue is a girl and Ronan is a boy. I think it’s because Ronan is—”

All at once, Adam realized what he had been saying. What he had been about to say. It was unlike him to say so much, especially revealing that much information about himself. His sentence broke off with a strange noise from the back of his throat and he exhaled, his entire body deflating slightly. He trained his eyes on the ceiling. “I didn’t know I liked boys until I realized that I liked Ronan. I realized that I liked Ronan because I missed him when he wasn’t sleeping on my floor, and I wanted to make him smile, and he leaned in to kiss me and I wanted to pull him closer. It’s that simple.”

If the answer satisfied Gansey, he wasn’t letting on. He seemed to be full of questions, which was in character, but that did not make it any less excruciating to endure. Adam adored his friend, though, and was determined to humor him for as long as he could. “So, Ronan was the first boy that you kissed?” asked Gansey.

Adam’s face froze mid-frown. He could have lied, but it would be awful — he could not lie to Ronan, not now, and certainly not in front of these specific people. He grit his teeth. “I never said that.”

“Wait, what?” sputtered Ronan as Henry Cheng said, “Oh, snap.” Blue, in the same moment, breathed, “Holy _shit_.” Gansey’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. Noah was eerily quiet.

“Well, Parrish, you can’t exactly drop a bomb like that and not elaborate,” said Henry. “If Ronan wasn’t your first, who was?”

Adam did not want to answer that question. He did not want to be in that room. He closed his eyes and imagined himself walking among the trees in Cabeswater. “I don’t think I should say,” he muttered. He could feel Ronan’s eyes on him.

“Why not?” asked Ronan, his voice unrealistically calm.

Adam swallowed. “He’s not… out. If he’s into guys, I mean. It’s not my place to make assumptions about his sexuality, and it’s certainly not my place to out him without his consent.”

Blue nodded her agreement. “That’s very respectful, Adam,” she said appreciatively, a small smile playing at her lips. “Even if I’m crazy curious about it.”

“Well, was it someone we know?” Henry asked gleefully.

Adam ground his teeth. “I really don’t think I should say.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at Ronan. “I would tell you guys if I thought it was the right thing to do,” he added, although he was largely grateful for the excuse to not say. 

The room was quiet for a moment, and then Noah’s voice broke through. “It was me.”

Five pairs of wide eyes landed on him.

“Noah,” Adam groaned.

“Noah,” whispered Ronan.

“Noah,” Henry cheered.

“Noah,” laughed Blue.

“Noah?” Gansey gasped.

Noah just shrugged his shoulders and leaned back against his couch cushion. “It’s fine, Adam,” he said, removing a small ball from his pocket and tossing it into the air above him. He caught it upon its descent and then launched it upwards once more. “I don’t care if they know.”

Ronan rounded on Adam then, his face red. “When did you kiss _Noah_?” he hissed.

Adam refused to let anybody shame him. “Like, a year ago. It wasn’t exactly a romantic moment or whatever. We were just hanging out, and I mentioned that I’d never been kissed, and he offered to kiss me.” He finally met Ronan’s eye. “I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”

The look in Ronan’s gaze was absolutely wild. “ _What’s wrong with that_ is that Noah was my first kiss, too!”

Four pairs of eyes landed on Ronan. 

“What?” Adam and Gansey squawked. Henry guffawed and threw himself down on the side of the couch; Blue said, “Holy _shit_!”

“It was — what the _fuck_ , Noah — it was the same thing! Last fall — I told Noah I had a crush on you — oh, shut the fuck up, Parrish, you don’t get to laugh at me for liking you when we’re _literally boyfriends_ — and I said I had never kissed a guy before, what if I’m bad? — and Noah — Noah, you’re such a bastard — Noah was like, I can help, and then we kissed! If I don’t get to judge you, you don’t get to judge me!”

“Oh, I hate this,” said Blue, rubbing at her eyes. “I can’t believe Adam, Ronan, and I all had the same first kiss.”

Four pairs of eyes landed on Blue.

“What?” Gansey shrieked. Henry laughed even harder and clutched at his side. Adam mumbled, “You have _got_ to be kidding me,” as Ronan breathed, “Son of a _bitch_.”

Blue was on the defensive before anybody could even attempt to ridicule her. “Oh, shut up. I had a _curse_! I didn’t think I’d ever be able to kiss _anybody_ without _killing_ them! And then Noah said, Hey, I know somebody that you could kiss. And now here we are!”

Adam tried — and failed — not to laugh. “Okay,” he said after a second, turning his eyes on Henry and Gansey, both seated on the couch beside where Noah continued to calmly throw and catch a bouncy ball. “Has anybody else in this room had their first kiss with Noah?”

Henry stopped laughing. Gansey averted his eyes.

“ _No_ ,” Adam whispered. Blue let out a wordless screech. Ronan huffed out, “Jesus fucking _Christ_.”

“Well, are you going to explain?” Blue demanded, her eyes aflame as she leaned over the arm of the couch to stare down at Gansey.

Gansey looked miserable, which made Adam miserable. He was about to come to his friend’s defense when Gansey said, his voice more prideful than was to be expected, “I have the same story as you, sans curse. I believe this was, hm, this summer? Hard to say.” 

“And Cheng?” Ronan grunted, his face buried in his hands. “Were you kissless too?”

Henry, for once in his life, seemed to be a tad bit embarrassed, although not nearly as much as his companions. “Well, yes. But I kissed Noah because I wanted to know if I liked boys, too.”

Four pairs of eyes landed on Henry.

“Plot twist,” Blue murmured.

“You don’t have to say anything you’re not comfortable saying,” said Adam neutrally. “But this is a safe space, Henry.”

Ronan snorted at that. “Safe space my ass. We’ve basically all kissed each other. I hate it here.” Adam shot him a glare, and he stopped talking.

Henry’s chin was tilted when they turned their attention back toward him. “At the risk of sounding redundant, I believe that I am attracted to people of all genders.”

For a moment, everybody was quiet, calculating the proper responses. After a second, though, it was Ronan who stepped forward. He approached Henry and reached out a fist, a smirk on his face. “Nice, Cheng. Fuck heteronormativity.” Henry smiled back at him and they knocked knuckles.

“I’m proud of you,” Adam said with a small smile of his own. He gave Henry a two-fingered salute from his spot on the windowsill.

“Well, now I feel like a fool,” muttered Gansey, and Adam furrowed his brows as he continued. “Now I’m going to sound like I’m copying all of you when I say that I have my suspicions about my sexuality, and I don’t believe that’s it hetero.”

Adam did not even allow his face to reflect his surprise. “You don’t sound like you’re copying anybody, Gansey,” he assured his friend, shaking his head goodnaturedly. “None of us here ‘owns’ the concept of not being straight.”

“Good, because I’m not straight, either,” said Noah, catching his ball. “But I think you guys got that already.”

With a scowl, Ronan reached out and snatched the ball right out of the air the next time that Noah tossed it. “You played us all,” he said accusingly. Noah just smiled innocently up at him.

“I played nobody. I just helped you all come to terms with your sexualities. You should be thanking me.”

“You didn’t help me with anything,” Blue protested, walking toward the couch and seating herself on the edge. “I knew I was bi before I even met you guys.”

Ronan arched an eyebrow, sweeping his gaze across the room. “Wait, does that mean there isn’t a single straight person in our entire group?” He paused, waiting to be told that he was wrong, and when he wasn’t corrected, his lips pulled back in a wide grin. “Oh, _fuck_ yes. I take it all back. I love it here.”

Adam snorted. “This all makes so much sense now.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it!!! as always, you're more than welcome to come interact with me on tumblr, i'm @wespers and i talk about adam parrish a lot and make edits and quizzes :) i hope you're all doing well and staying safe!! p.s. song title comes from LGBT by lowell!


End file.
